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| Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, visited with EdSource Today staff shortly after announcing his retirement after 40 years in Congress. Credit: Lillian Mongeau, EdSource |
Rep. George Miller, a leading architect of the No Child Left Behind legislation, says he never anticipated that the landmark education law would ignite the testing obsession that engulfed the nation’s schools, leading to what some have charged is a simplistic “drill and kill” approach that subverts real instruction.
EdSource sat down with Miller, D-Martinez, last week for a lengthy and wide-ranging conversation on his accomplishments, philosophy and hopes for the future of public education. The Contra Costa County congressman, who served as chair or ranking minority member of the House Education Committee and the Workforce Committee since 1997, announced earlier this month that after 40 years in the House of Representatives, he would not seek re-election when his current term expires.
In an animated discussion, Miller, 68, defended what has become one of the more controversialaspects of NCLB, testing and accountability. He said the purpose of the 2001 law that he co-wrote with the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and Republicans Rep. John Boehner of Ohio and Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire was to inspire a broader discussion of how children learn and to hold states responsible for ensuring that all students were learning, especially those at risk of failing due to income, ethnicity, race and disability. To Miller, the most important part of the law – which was championed by then President George W. Bush – was to require districts to publish data on how well students were doing.
“In this education system, if you’re not counted, you don’t count,” Miller said.
Testing was intended as a way to measure schools’ progress based on how well their students
You’ve got to have faith to be a great teacher - by Ellie Herman / commentary
For the last four months, as part of a yearlong search to understand what great teaching looks like by visiting 11th grade English classrooms across Los Angeles, I’ve had a chance to observe great teachers in schools across the socioeconomic spectrum, from a very low-income community in Watts to an ... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit the Edsource Today website for full links, other conte